


Dangerous Experiences

by Jain



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: Hamiathes' Gift Exchange, M/M, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-18
Updated: 2018-08-18
Packaged: 2019-06-29 08:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15725649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain
Summary: Kamet isn't a slave or on the run anymore.





	Dangerous Experiences

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Canon_Is_Relative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/gifts).



"Do you think we'll see a polar bear?" Costis asked, leaning against the railing beside Kamet.

Kamet suppressed a start. Costis moved surprisingly quietly for such a big man, and Kamet had been distracted by the deeply red sunset and his own thoughts.

"We're too far south for that, even if it weren't almost summer," he said.

Costis made an amused sound in reply, not quite a laugh, and Kamet shook his head. "You were joking."

"I was," Costis confirmed. His voice was a little wistful when he said, "I wouldn't mind seeing one, though."

"First lions, now polar bears, what next? Have you a hankering to experience a sea serpent firsthand, as well?"

That _did_ prompt a laugh. "Don't let the sailors hear you say that," he said, and Kamet looked around with belated caution. Luckily, there was nobody within earshot.

"You can't deny that you seem to have a certain appetite for dangerous wildlife."

"I didn't particularly want to see that lion," Costis protested. "I just thought it was a safer enemy than the Namreen."

He possibly had a point there. "So," Kamet said, only a little grudgingly.

The sun took that moment to slip below the horizon, and Kamet shivered, more out of belated recognition that the evening had been growing chillier for a while as he stood on the open deck. Attolia had been colder than Mede, even at this time of the year, and they were now a week's journey to the northwest of Attolia.

"I should go to bed," he said. The nights were colder but shorter than he was used to, and he wasn't a slave or on the run anymore: he could sleep as long as he liked. Unfortunately, a lifetime of habit meant that he didn't sleep past sunrise. Which meant that when the sun rose early, he likewise had to go to bed early if he wanted to rest well.

"Good idea," Costis said and joined him on the walk to their cabins.

Two cabins, side by side, because they had the money and because the chances of someone on the ship trying to kill them in their sleep was low and because Kamet truly wasn't a slave anymore, not even in his own mind. (Not most of the time, anyway.) He deserved to sleep in a bed rather than on the floor, and the ship bunks were too narrow for two grown men to share unless they were considerably more intimate with each other than Costis and Kamet were.

Kamet put that thought out of his mind almost as soon as it had arisen. As well as the thought that he'd fallen asleep to the sound of another man's breathing--first the other slaves', and then Nahuseresh's, and finally Costis's--almost every night that he could remember, and while there were very few things he missed about being a slave, that might be one of them.

"Goodnight," Costis said with a quick squeeze of Kamet's shoulder. He'd been touching Kamet more often and easily of late. Kamet tried not to think about that, either. (There were quite a lot of things Kamet wasn't letting himself think about.)

"Goodnight," Kamet echoed and slipped into his cabin. He slid under the chill blankets without undressing. Only his left shoulder felt warm, where Costis had clasped it, and Kamet lay in bed shivering for a long time before he finally dozed off. Not thinking.


End file.
